


In Your Honor

by Seta_Kaita



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombies, M/M, Merle's POV, Merle's a good brother (essentially), Slow Burn (Sort Of), some homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-02 20:51:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5263157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seta_Kaita/pseuds/Seta_Kaita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story about Merle's life from his first memories to his mid-fifties. The ups and downs in his life, his loyalty and love for Daryl and how he ultimately wants his brother to be happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ilerre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilerre/gifts).



> Written in honour of Ilerre's "If I Had A Heart", one of the most startling stories I've ever read in my life.
> 
> Many thanks to my wonderful beta-reader, Michelle_A_Emerlind, who gave me lots of support and wonderful comments!

~*~

Mine is yours and yours is mine  
I will sacrifice  
In your honor  
I would die tonight  
For you to feel alive

~*~

 

At the age of five, Merle couldn’t remember his first friend or if his dad had ever hugged him, but he remembered the color of his crib and the caps of beer bottles hanging down into it by strings of tooth floss so he could grab at them and have something to play with while his mom tried to cook.

When he was eight, his dad brought home a rusty old bicycle and taught him how to ride it by slapping him every time he fell, so Merle could get around town more easily and buy beer or cigarettes for his old man.

Shortly before his tenth birthday, his dad lost his job, because he could never see straight anymore. So Mom took on a job she never talked about and Dad drank away her paycheck. On Merle’s birthday, his uncle Joe brought a dozen bottles of moonshine and they laughed their lungs out when Merle mistook it for water and swallowed a few gulps; shortly after, he made his first intimate acquaintance with the toilet.

Since Dad had so much time on his hands now, he decided to spend most of it with Uncle Joe, cooking up moonshine and drinking most of it themselves while Merle played in the woods. The moonshine made Dad a little more aware to the world around him than beer had and when hunting season came around, he left Uncle Joe to his business and taught Merle how to shoot that old crossbow that usually hung in a corner of the living room. But his stumbling gait made too much noise and scared away the game and so Dad got furious about it. Instead of getting a grip on himself, he directed his anger at Merle and beat him bloody for the first time with a willow stick. Then he went back to Uncle Joe and left Merle to trot home and wait for Mom to come back from work so she could patch him up.

Living in a Dixon’s house, you had to be tough; Merle had learned that very quickly. His dad could bleed in gulps and not give a shit about it. Mom had once broken her wrist and not made a noise, simply wrapping the limb in an old t-shirt and then walking five miles to the local vet to give her a cast, because they couldn’t afford the hospital. So Merle had learned to hide his pain, to smirk through his tears, face a horrible grimace and nails digging into his palm. He knew to show no weakness and shout insults even when he was on the ground with feet kicking into his ribs. He would spit blood in a guy’s face if he asked why Merle wasn’t begging for mercy.

But he had also learned to only care for himself, use people to his advantage and lie on the spot. At school, teachers and pupils alike hated his face. They all found he was trouble on legs and Merle was just fine with that. He was a Dixon, it was in his blood. It wouldn’t be until he dropped out of school that he’d find people who thought he had a damn fine attitude.

Merle had grown up as an only child, his parents’ curiosity about having children the reason for his existence. Even though his dad didn’t care for or about him and his mom couldn’t find the time to, he had always known that he had been wanted, once upon a time. But with Daryl, it was all different.

Mom got pregnant again when he was twelve. She told Merle it was an accident and that he was to keep it from Dad as long as possible. Merle knew how to keep his mouth shut and he picked up his mom’s lies, postponing the inevitable wrath of his father for as long as they could. Merle skipped school all throughout hunting season and made sure they had enough meat in the freezer to keep them fed until the baby was born. What he couldn’t fit anymore, he sold to the butcher and hid the money from his dad.

When Mom asked him to, he even helped her keep a lid on her smoking. Whenever he caught her with a pack, he would yell till she cried and promised not to do it again, then he would smoke the whole pack himself so she couldn’t sneak any. Seven months into the pregnancy, her belly swelled to more than twice its size and they couldn’t deny it anymore. She lost her job and Merle all of his money when Dad beat her so hard that Merle had to take her to hospital. She nearly lost the baby, too, and in the first bout of protectiveness Merle had ever felt in his life, he quit school altogether and stayed home with his mom, who was in such a bad condition after the beating, that she could barely leave the bed at all.

His dad would come home late at night and Merle would guard the bedroom door, taking the beating meant for her and fighting back as best as he could so his dad would be too exhausted to step over his son’s broken body to go on and do the same to Mom. After Dad had gone to bed, Merle would lock his bedroom door and curl up next to his mom in Merle’s bed, pressing a damp cloth to his split lip, but smiling at the thought that he had protected the baby.

It finally came in spring, a week late like it knew that the world would be cruel to him. Merle, thirteen and looking every bit like the mean son of a bitch that he was, held his mother’s hand in childbirth. His dad stood in the furthest corner he could find and growled at everything and nothing. Mom passed out from exhaustion after the wet, red, screaming distortion of a human came out, eight hours into labor; not a bad time, people told him. Dad wouldn’t touch the little bundle with a ten-foot pole, so after they had washed his baby brother, Merle was the first to hold him. Looking at the hideous thing, he didn’t get what all the fuss had been about. Mom’s fear, Dad’s anger, his own protectiveness – all for _this_? He snorted and put his brother on his mom’s chest. They called him Daryl.

A new routine was found at home after two months. Dad was busy drinking and watching TV, Mom carried the baby around while doing house work and Merle tried to make money any way he could. Six months after Daryl was born, Merle got convicted for stealing food. Seven months in juvie were followed by three months out, before he got back in for robbery and didn’t get out before fifteen months were up. When he came back home, Daryl could walk and talk, but didn’t remember him. The boy stared at Merle while he caught up with his mom, Dad passed out on the couch, then he walked up to Merle and tugged at his pants to get his attention.

“Who’re you?” He demanded, eying him suspiciously. Merle smirked down at the little worm.

“’m your brother, Merle. I kept you safe from ‘im”, he jabbed his thumb in the general direction of the couch, “before you were even born.” Daryl took his time processing that, probably trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean. Then he nodded.

“Thanks.” With that, he turned around and ran out to play in the backyard. Merle shook his head at the little weirdo and grabbed his mom’s cigarettes.

 


	2. So Many Kinds Of Love

 

Daryl didn’t seem to wonder why he had never met his brother before – not that he could remember, at least. Maybe Mom had told him about Merle, or maybe he couldn’t grasp the concept of a brother, because he would sometimes ask Merle when he was leaving again. When Merle told him he wasn’t going anywhere, the little boy would light up like a Christmas tree, though, grab Merle hand and drag him out to the nearby woods to play with him. And since Merle didn’t know how to play with a two-year-old, he taught him how to hunt and trap.

The terrible twos lasted longer than people said they would and it drove Merle up the wall. Daryl would chuck tantrums every few minutes until Dad would blow up and yell at them; he didn’t beat on either of them when Daryl was around, though, so Merle made sure to stick to his baby brother as much as possible, even though he robbed Merle’s last nerve.

Merle found his first girlfriend at sixteen. She was twenty-two and on crack, but she had beautiful blonde hair that Daryl loved to comb and she adored his baby brother. She would lie in the dirt of their backyard, high as a kite and giggling as Daryl ran his fingers through the soft, blonde strands, mesmerized by the color and texture. Daryl had his own share of blond locks, but they were dull and dirty most of the time, while hers were golden and shiny.

Merle shared most of her with Daryl. When they went out, he would take his baby brother along. When they were home, he would let them play together. When he lost his virginity to her, Daryl lay in bed on the other side of the room, watching. One day in winter, Merle came home from his job in the local supermarket to find his dad gone to the bar, Mom asleep in bed and Daryl sitting on the couch, braiding his girlfriend’s hair who was sitting on the floor in front of him. The braid looked elaborate, nothing Merle could have done even with instructions, but his baby brother was moving his hands with precision, displaying a level of concentration he could otherwise only muster for setting traps. Boy likes to work with his hands, Merle told himself, nothing more. You should be proud of him.

The relationship lasted for a year, until Merle got a call from her brother, one of the drug dealers in town, to tell him they had found her dead in a pool of puke. OD, they told him. Merle took Daryl to the funeral and let him put roses on her grave.

“Where’s Sis gone?” The three-year-old asked a few days later and Merle had the hardest time explaining to him the concept of siblings and the concept of romance. Baby brother didn’t really get it.

What he did get, though, was that she was gone, had left in some way, was absent and wouldn’t come back.

 

\---***---

 

After her death, Merle found his way into the drug dealing business. He got booked for possession two months before his eighteenth birthday and went to juvie again. This time, he had associations and a small reputation to his name, which made life easier behind bars. They granted him parole after thirteen months and he went home to his friends even before showing up at home. They celebrated his return for two days and the next time he saw Daryl, he blamed the alcohol for doing a double-take to check that he had a brother, not a sister.

Five years, and Daryl was prettier than a rose illuminated by the first rays of spring sun – or something like that. He was sitting on the worn, old rug next to the coffee table, playing with a toy plane Merle recognized dimly from his own childhood, dressed in a pair of dirty, ripped jeans and a stained singlet, but he could easily have worn a flowery dress and ribbons in his hair for how much he looked like a girl. He turned his head towards Merle when he entered, smiled brightly and waved, before turning his attention back to his toys. But Merle hadn’t missed the healing bruise on his cheek, the ugly green warring with the natural rose in Daryl’s face.

Funny, he thought, setting his keys down on the table by the door, he had thought his protectiveness hadn’t survived Daryl’s birth. But it bubbled up again fiercely hot as he strode over to where his dad was watching football. He told Daryl to gather his toys and play in their room, he would join him there shortly. The boy did as he was told, casting him a confused look and disappeared into the hall. Once he was out of sight, Merle landed the first punch in his father’s face. He dimly remembered the coffee table breaking under his back when his dad threw him on it, then his mother’s screaming, but mostly he could just hear the blood thrumming in his ears. He landed a good few punches, but his dad gave as good as he got and in the end they were both a bloody mess on the floor.

“If you ever touch him again, imma kill you!” Merle roared before stumbling to the bathroom, leaving his mom to take care of her husband.

 

\---***---

 

And Dad didn’t touch Daryl again. He would get into fights with Merle from time to time, but Merle made sure Dad kept his distance from his baby brother. That didn’t keep him from throwing insults, though. Some days Merle would come home to Daryl sitting on the couch, hands in his lap and head hung low while his dad towered over him, shouting in rage and blubbering some indistinguishable shit. Those times, Merle let him. Good way to toughen the little brat up, he found. Take the verbal lashes and learn to deal and live with them. He’d had to deal with worse in his time.

Afterwards, he’d ask Daryl what he’d done to enrage their father, but the boy would just shrug and crawl under his blanket to shut out the world. He did that a lot. Where Merle had been loud and hyper and always up to mischief, Daryl was usually quiet, playing alone in the woods and sticking to the rules most of the time. He was always right there when Mom needed a hand, helping her with cooking, cleaning and washing. When that never failed to draw a fond smile from her, Merle understood why he did it. And if the little shit learned something along the lines, well, all the better. Merle couldn’t cook a steak if you gave him instructions.

On weekends, Merle took the boy hunting, telling him all about his week, boasting with stories that showed how much of a badass he was.

“No one fucks with ol’ Merle.” He said proudly, pounding his chest with his fist to punctuate his words. Little Daryl always looked up to him in awe, idolizing his brother.

“When I grow up, I wanna be like you, Merle.” He would say enthusiastically, babbling about all the cool things he wanted to do when he was grown up. Merle would ruffle his hair with a self-pleased smirk and miss all the game he could have shot, too caught up in his own world.

He felt invincible with his friends at his side. He had enough dirt sticking to his name to make an impression on the important people and a few months after coming out of juvie, he was put in charge of supply. Before, he had been a foot soldier, dealing on street corners or doing house calls. Sometimes, they’d sent him to rough someone up and he was good at it. Now that he had proven himself useful and trustworthy, they introduced him to the people in the background, showing him how business worked behind the scenes and Merle was a fast learner. And the girls were prettier now, too.

He met Janie at the gang’s Christmas party the same year. Most of the guys were there, as were drugs and alcohol, music and drunk fellas messing up the cabin in the woods that belonged to one of the higher-ups. Merle had brought his baby brother. Regardless of all the bodies crammed into the small place, he managed to keep an eye on him throughout the party; except for one time when he got too caught up in a drinking game. After he’d won a few rounds, he looked around for Daryl, but couldn’t see him anywhere. Telling himself not to panic, he turned the place upside down, looking in every room, ignoring the yelled insults when he interrupted the screwing folks. But even after searching the closets, he came up empty-handed. His baby brother was still lost.

He was about to unplug the stereo and call for Daryl, when he caught a glimpse of him on the couch. Merle stopped in his tracks and took a step back to have a better view. And indeed, there he was. Sitting on a pretty girl’s lap, happily chatting to her and her friend. They laughed suddenly and Daryl grinned smugly. Not even six and already a womanizer, Merle thought with pride and jealousy. But damn, he’d been worried about the little brat!

So he stormed over, ready to chew the little boy’s head off, when the girl in whose lap Daryl perched turned her head towards him and smiled the sweetest, reddest smile with the whitest teeth he had ever seen at him and all his anger flew out of the window.

“Merle!” Daryl chirped excitedly. “Look, this’s Janie an’ tha’s Annie. They’re sisters, like you ‘n’ me.” He proclaimed, beaming from ear-to-ear.

“Nah, baby brother, you ‘n’ me, we’re brothers. We’re boys. They’re girls.” He tried explaining without falling in with Janie’s giggles.

“Oh, same thing.” Daryl huffed, waving away his words unconcernedly. This time, Merle allowed himself a chuckle when the girls burst out laughing.

“Did he drink somethin’?” Merle asked the girls and they giggled again.

“Don’t be mad, it was just a little beer, cause he liked it so much.” Janie confessed and Merle couldn’t find it in him to chastise either of them. His baby brother was happy and Janie was just downright gorgeous.

Before the party was over, he dragged her into one of the bedrooms, telling Daryl to sit still in a corner and shut up, the adults had some business to take care of. The boy mostly complied, except for the occasional hum of a song he was singing under his breath.


	3. Thin Line

It wasn’t like Merle had been celibate since his first girlfriend, he liked sex way too much for that and didn’t really care about who he was doing it with. But Janie, he realized quickly, was something else. She looked innocent enough when she wanted to, but she turned quite wild in bed and was always up for sex, no matter where they were or who was around to see or hear. Mom didn’t like her, but that was probably because Janie was a screamer. Merle stayed with her for two years.

When spring came without warning, driving away the long, cold winter with strong sunrays and the fastest full-bloom Merle could remember – not that he would have noticed it himself, baby brother had pointed it out – Daryl turned six. Merle bought him a bag for school and some semi-good clothes from the thrift shop for his first day. No point looking all Dixon on his first day, Merle argued. Folks would find out and give him a hard time about it soon enough. And right they would be, for he had no doubts that Daryl would turn out just as vicious and misfit as all Dixons.

Dad was conveniently absent for the whole day, probably drinking in town, so Merle gave into Mom’s nagging and threw a birthday party. Daryl didn’t have any friends yet, since they lived right on the edge of the woods, far from town and the other kids. So Mom invited her only friend – Merle rarely saw her, Dad didn’t like to think Mom had anyone besides him in her life – and Merle made sure Janie and Annie would come over. Mom had made a cake and Janie brought muffins, Merle got a few bottles of lemonade and they spread a blanket out on the lawn to have a picnic on. They spent a nice, slow day, eating cake, cooking a light dinner together, talking, watching Daryl play and drinking wine later.

Mom’s friend had gone home and Merle was helping her with the dishes in the kitchen – Daryl would normally do it, but since it was his birthday, Merle had decided to spoil the little shit some more and take over – when he heard a series of loud giggles from the living room. He didn’t pay it any mind; girls tended to giggle, after all. When they were done in the kitchen and all the dishes were put away where they belonged, Merle grabbed a beer from the fridge – he wasn’t one for wine – and walked over to where the girls sat with their backs to him, hands busy with something that seemed to involve Daryl sitting in front of them.

Merle moved closer, not sure if he really wanted to know what they were doing to his baby brother – and then he caught a glimpse of Daryl’s face. How he managed not to drop his beer, he would never know.

For sitting in their living room, hands resting on Janie’s thigh while his feet were propped up on Annie’s leg, getting his nails painted in a faint pink, was his little baby _sister_ , watching the girls put the nail polish on him out of tinted eyelids, plush lips slightly open, lipstick glistening on them. Merle took another torturous step closer, taking in the scene before him. The girls were giggling amongst them and Daryl examined the finished hand closely, turning it to watch the reflections change with the angle of his hand to the light.

“Don’t touch anything till it’s dry.” Annie reminded him and Daryl sighed through his pretty, pink lips.

“But I wanna go play.” He whined.

“I thought you liked your nails.” Janie said with a laugh.

“I do. But I wanna play. I saw a bird’s nest in the pine tree ‘hind the house.” Daryl argued.

“You can’t climb a tree with this, you’ll ruin the paint.” Annie chastised him with a smile.

“Then what’m I s’posed ta do?” Daryl pouted, sticking his lower lip out and smearing the lipstick in the process. That woke Merle from his trance and he felt his face flush in anger and horror.

“WHAT THE FUCK D’YOU THINK YOU’RE DOIN’?!” He yelled. All three jumped in surprise, the girls messing up the nails they were painting as a consequence. Daryl was the first to recover from the shock and he held his hand out for Merle to see, beaming up at him.

“Look, Merle! I got pretty nails!” He announced, waving his hand in the air excitedly. The girls quickly packed away their make-up and tried to act like they hadn’t just turned his baby brother into a freaking girl, for crying out loud.

Merle couldn’t recall what he had yelled at them later, just that he had screamed his head off and thrown the girls out none too gently. Mom must had snuck past him, because she was nowhere to be seen to help him wash the girliness off his brother, who didn’t understand what was happening and what he had done wrong. He started crying when Merle rubbed his fingers raw with a brush to get all traces of the nail polish off.

Afterwards, he crawled into bed straight away, crying himself to sleep while Merle paced back and forth on the porch, pink lips and nails haunting his thoughts. He could only find consolation in knowing Dad would never be the wiser about this.

No wonder the boy was gender-confused.

 

\---***---

 

He didn’t openly catch Janie dolling his brother up again after that, but sometimes Daryl would turn away from her after Merle had left them alone for just a few moments and the boy’s lips would shine in an unnatural shade of red or pink. But he was usually gone like the wind before Merle could examine his face any closer. Janie claimed he was just naturally pretty, with that little birthmark right above the left corner of his upper lip and the perfectly symmetrical face. Merle hoped he would grow out of it. This kind of pretty wasn’t a safe thing being around these parts.

Merle’s hopes rose after Daryl started school. Three weeks into school, Daryl stopped confusing ‘he’ and ‘she’, could point out a girl when Merle showed him pictures of kids and tell him what the difference between boys and girls was. He finally accepted that boys didn’t wear girls’ clothes, didn’t have their nails painted and didn’t wear make-up. Boys got dirty, liked cars and stood their ground in a fight.

So when Mom got the first complaint from a teacher about Daryl solving his conflicts with his fists, Merle was mighty proud of him. He’d make a proper Dixon out of his baby brother yet.

 

\---***---

 

Merle broke up with Janie a year later, got arrested but then released again for lack of evidence another twelve months after that and watched Daryl grow into a more brash, defiant kid that caused plenty of trouble at school, but found other kids to hang out with nevertheless. Sometimes, the boys of his class would come over to play in the woods and Merle watched proudly as Daryl explained to them how to sneak upon a squirrel and throw rocks at it.

They moved into a different house during the summer break of Daryl’s second year in school. Uncle Joe had died and left their dad everything, for he didn’t have a wife or kids. They lived in a proper street now, but their backyard still faced the woods. With his drinking buddy gone, Dad spent all his time at home now, driving Mom insane. He was angrier than before, lashed out with his belt more often and drank away all the money Joe had left him. Daryl and Merle had to share a room again, but neither minded. Merle actually preferred it that way, so he could keep an eye on Daryl.

What he missed, though, and he only saw what he had been blind about, was how the new environment and Dad’s increased violence affected Mom. He got the news in the army. Booked for possession and dealing, he had been sentenced to five years behind bars or join the forces for the same amount of time. Being one to never miss out on a chance to fight, he chose the latter. He got a call from the pigs in his home town a few months into his first year. His mom had died, smoked in bed, probably drunk, and burned down the house with her in it.

His first reaction was shock.

Then he inquired about his baby brother, who was unharmed.

Finally he asked, hopefully, if the fire had taken the old bastard with it. It hadn’t.

So now Daryl was alone with their old, angry man and Merle would be gone for five years. He slept badly until his home leave. They wouldn’t let him leave the base otherwise just yet, since he was a criminal, but he was allowed to go home for the funeral. When he came home, though, he was relieved to find he had worried for nothing. Daryl was competently keeping the house in order and the old man was too stricken by grief to even acknowledge the two brothers.

Merle went back to the base after two days with a lighter heart. He knew Daryl could take care of himself. He was a tough kid, Merle had made sure to raise him as one. He would pull through alright.

 

\---***---

 

Merle kept in contact with Daryl through letters mostly; he was allowed a phone call for Christmas and their birthdays. If Merle had known to behave himself, he probably would have been granted home leave somewhere along the lines. But Merle had been trouble all his life and wouldn’t change now, not for the cops and not for the sergeants. It didn’t exactly come as a surprise to him when an argument turned physical and he gave that loud-mouthed fuck of a sergeant, who had him on his list, anyway, a nice taste of his right hook. He was dishonorably discharged right after to serve the rest of his sentence in prison. Sixteen months and he was out on the streets again, reconnecting with his old gang.

He went home – the old shack in the woods again – once, found his dad on just the right point between angrily-sober and pissed-drunk. Before he got the question of where Daryl was over his lips completely, Dad had punched him in the face. He broke the bastard’s arm, packed a bag and crashed on a homie’s couch. He never went back home to his father.

Daryl found him in a trailer he had bought with money borrowed from his buddies. Thirteen years of age and he looked nothing like Merle had back then. At that age, Merle had gotten a baby brother he had spent the last four months protecting from Dad’s wrath. He had been muscled and a mean son of a bitch, packing a punch that even grown men feared.

But Daryl was on the small side, lean and looking slightly malnourished, dark shadows under his eyes. But his face was still the prettiest sight in all of Georgia. Downright beautiful when he dropped his eyes and shifted his weight from one hip to the other.

The jeans he wore were torn and the t-shirt dirty, but as his baby brother lifted his arms to grab two beers out of the fridge, the shirt rode up high, exposing half a foot of bare skin over his low-hanging jeans and Merle started to wonder if his baby brother still knew the difference between men and women. Wondered if Daryl did it on purpose. If he would catch him wearing lipstick ever again.

At least he drank and smoked already, so Merle didn’t have to teach him that. His change of voice became more pronounced when he was tipsy and Merle had a ball teasing him about it. If nothing else, puberty would surely take care of Daryl’s androgynous looks, Merle decided.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MermaidSheenaz and Michelle_A_Emerlind asked me about the scene where Daryl gets dolled up, so I feel like mentioning:  
> It's actually a true story from my cousin's childhood. He liked dressing up as a girl when he was young. What prompted me to include it in my fic was a similar scene in superblackmarket's fic Ain't Gonna Whistle Dixie No More, which is one of my favourite fics of her's. So that inspired me to put nail polish and make-up on Daryl ^^


	4. Crystal Nightmares

He saw Daryl on and off throughout the next year, but business became a more pressing matter with his debts, so he concentrated on making money where he could. But life had never been nice to him, so he was caught again for possession. Sometimes he wondered if the cops ever bothered booking anyone besides him. He sure felt like they were fixated on him.

He was lucky that they couldn’t prove that he had been dealing, too, having been smart enough to keep his stash far away from his trailer. So instead of having to do close to ten years, he got off again with four. And when he came out one day in the fall and Daryl waited outside to pick him up in his old, beat-up truck, he realized in a sudden and brutal moment of epiphany, that he had completely missed Daryl grow up.

A conversation drifted into his mind from years back when Daryl had been struggling to reach up for Merle’s hand, about people being absent from other people’s lives. Of how Daryl couldn’t see the difference between boys and girls, but knew exactly what abandonment was.

Now, had Merle been an empathetic kind of person, had he learned to comfort and chase away someone’s hurt, he might have broken down right there in front of the prison and his brother, sobbing his apologies to Daryl and making promises to never leave him again.

Instead, he pushed the thought away and figured it mustn’t have hurt Daryl, for he finally looked like what Merle had hoped to see once his baby brother grew up to be just his brother. He smirked at him, giving him a quick once-over.

Nearly reaching up to Merle’s height, his brother wore the same kind of battered old clothes he had always worn, exchanging the showing t-shirts for plaid button-downs and Merle’s favorite old leather vest with angel wings on the back. His dishwater blond hair was short, stubble on his chin giving him less feminine features. Still pretty as fuck, though, but judging by the slight beer belly and tree trunks as upper arms, people wouldn’t mistake him for a girl anymore.

Daryl nodded to him in greeting, handed him a cigarette and got in the passenger seat without being asked to. Merle felt like weeping in joy for a moment, before he got a grip on himself.

“Hey, Baby Brother. Good ta see you again.” Merle boomed out a laugh and slapped Daryl’s shoulder, not noticing the tiny flinch.

“Yeah, good ta have you back.” Confirmed a low, rough voice that Merle didn’t recognize. He liked the sound, though. It was a very manly sound and suited his brother. Seemed like it had all come together even without his constant surveillance, Merle decided.

 

\---***---

 

The next two years were a blur in Merle’s memory. Shortly after Merle getting out of prison, Daryl had an accident with the old truck. Drunk driving leading to loss of control and Daryl had found himself kissing the steering wheel a little too passionately. Fractured jaw, broken eye socket. The doctors had to put an implant in to hold Daryl’s eye in place so his vision wasn’t screwed. Merle joined a few heists to pay for surgery, but he stopped complaining about it when Daryl had healed up and it became clear that the symmetry of his face was shot to shit. The big, blue eyes that Janie and Annie had loved to put make-up on were now tight slits that gave Daryl’s already scowling face a look of permanent mistrust and wariness. In Merle’s opinion, it was exactly the kind of face to take the world on with.

Daryl had dropped out of school after Mom's death. Without her salary, they hadn’t managed to get by anymore and Dad had refused to accept charity. He worked part-time in the local garage, making enough money to pay the bills, so Merle didn’t worry about that. Half a year after Daryl’s accident, Dad died from untreated liver cancer. Merle had shortly debated if throwing a party was the right reaction to the old man finally biting the dust, but Daryl seemed opposed to the idea, pointing out that once upon a time, he must have been a man Mom had loved and he wouldn’t disgrace her memory of the bastard. Merle chose not to mention what he had been through with Mom in the months leading to Daryl’s birth and that Mom had known exactly what a monster her husband had been. He wasn’t even sure anymore if her death hadn’t been suicide.

But all that didn’t keep him from pissing on his father’s grave after the funeral.

Merle moved back in with Daryl and scraped together the money for a new carpet in the living room, for the old one was permanently stained and reeking of alcohol, sweat, stale breath and, very faintly, blood. For a year, Merle tried to keep a clean slate, hopping from job to job and always ending up fighting – physically, more often than not –with his boss or one of his co-workers and losing his job in the process.

In the end, he gave up trying and went back to his old gang, who welcomed him back with a smile and crystal meth.

 

\---***---

 

Merle made an effort to get to know his brother during that time. He would take him drinking sometimes, other times just brought booze home, but the more he drank, the less likely Daryl was to talk about stuff. He was fun to get drunk with, mind you, laughing more frequently and listening with rapt attention he tended to lack when he was sober. When Daryl was drunk, it was like having his baby brother back, all wide-eyed and hanging on his lips for every word, not questioning the stories Merle told, true or not. He made Merle feel like he was the greatest again. When Daryl was sober, he would walk out on him talking on a regular basis. His eyes were always distant, fixed on their surroundings more than on the person he talked to. If he could avoid talking, he would at any cost. He didn’t listen, he wasn’t interested in anything Merle had to say and a grunt must have been a valid equivalent to a proper answer to his brother.

Daryl genuinely seemed to enjoy solitary life and avoided people as much as he could. As far as Merle could tell, he had no friends, no girlfriend and didn’t go out for company, either. That didn’t strike Merle as a particularly healthy lifestyle, but he’d be damned if he brought that up with the man.

What did please Merle, though, was that no matter how he despised company, Daryl would always make sure to greet him when he came home from work, even going so far as to come looking for him in the woods when he hadn’t found him in the house. He would pay attention to Merle’s preferences quietly, cooking what Merle liked, making trips to the fridge when he caught Merle eying his empty beer bottle and keeping noise to a minimum when he thought Merle was sleeping.

One Saturday in early fall, Merle decided to conduct a little experiment – and felt mighty smart for his cunning plan – and turned things around. He made Daryl breakfast that was suspiciously eyed, told Daryl to get out of the kitchen so he could clean up – that earned him a skeptical snort – and kept his mouth shut as much as Daryl did all day. It was exhausting, to say the least, to have to watch his tongue all the time. Merle was a loud man who liked noise and hearing himself talk. He was the kind of guy who would comment on everything happening in his life, he wasn’t made to be a silent monk, for god’s sake! But when he sat down next to Daryl on the porch that night, passing him a beer and accepting a cigarette in return, he caught a small smile curling Daryl’s lips upwards. They sat together for a long time, drinking and smoking, watching the sun go down and the moon rise, and suddenly the whole silent business ceased to feel so very alien to him. It was kind of comfortable, if he was perfectly honest with himself. He wasn’t sure if he could do it every day, though.

“You don’ hafta, you know.” Daryl murmured, as if in answer to his thoughts.

“Do what?”

“Keep your mouth shut all day. I can tune you out.” Daryl clarified, lifting the bottle to his lips with a smirk. Merle stared for a while, then he snorted a laugh and shook his head. Who was to understand his brother, really?

 

\---***---

 

If his memories after prison had been hazy, the following three years on crystal meth were practically non-existent. In hindsight, he knew he was one of the lucky ones. The only asshole in all of Georgia with a brother who loved him dearly, more than his own life, and was loyal to a fault. Never once had he strayed from Merle’s side, stopped believing in him and refused to take his shit, because he knew that Merle hadn’t been himself. Or so he was told in the weeks following rehab. All Merle could remember were fragments of memories, like photographs from an early childhood. Then he had woken up in a hospital bed, strapped down and drenched in cold sweat with an IV that shot something up his arm that clearly wasn’t meth.

What he would never forget until the day he died was the look on Daryl’s face when he came to visit and Merle was conscious and more or less lucid. Like the whole world had rested on his shoulders, the pain and suffering etched into his features; but one look at Merle sitting upright in bed had washed all that away. Never before had Merle seen that look of utter joy on his brother’s face.

What an asshole he must have been, Merle thought, to make his brother worry like that. Daryl didn’t say a word and Merle’s tongue didn’t obey his commands yet, so they simply sat and watched the other until Merle fell asleep again.

He learned later that he was missing three years of his life. He could still remember the first few highs, but he had been swept away by the drug pretty quickly. He had supported his addiction by stealing money, from his brother among others. He had no doubts that he had been a colossal asshole to Daryl, probably abused him in some way, too. Most likely beat him a few times. Daryl had new scars all over his face and some on his arms, too. But he waved Merle’s concerns away when he brought up the topic.

“Nothin’ I ain’t lived through before.” Daryl tried to console him, but that only served to make Merle feel worse. Because it was quite obvious in that moment that he had suffered abuse before and Merle could only think that he had been a colossal idiot when he had left Daryl alone with their dad. Like their old man would have had enough after beating Merle bloody when he had been younger and wouldn’t keep doing it to his youngest son, too. When he asked why Daryl had put up with his shit all those years and even taken him into rehab when Merle had collapsed one day, unable to move a single muscle in his body and struggling to breathe, Daryl threw him a look that said he was an idiot. “What else would I have done? You’re ma brother.”

My brother.

I love you.

I would go through hell for you.

I love you.

My brother.

Daryl said none of that out loud, but his eyes spelled them out perfectly clear.

“I ain’t never gonna touch that shit again, I swear.” Merle promised, holding Daryl’s gaze to make sure his baby brother knew he was serious. He got a tiny nod in answer before their eye contact was severed. Daryl picked at a loose thread in his jeans and chewed a cuticle of the other hand. “How’re we payin’ for this, anyway?” Merle wondered aloud, looking around the small, rather run-down room.

“Don’ worry, ‘s a free clinic. We’re in Atlanta, I brought you here when they said you needed rehab. Couldn’t pay fer it, so I took you here.” Daryl explained off-handedly, not meeting his eyes again. Merle nodded to himself. It made sense. But he was sure Daryl was keeping quiet about something.

 

\---***---

 

That something turned out to be a rather big thing. Merle stayed in rehab for two more weeks after he had come back to his senses. He didn’t dare ask how long he had been in that place, but it must have been several weeks. When Daryl helped him into the passenger seat of a truck Merle didn’t recognize and promised to take him home, Merle had expected the drive to take hours. So when Daryl left the highway not even half an hour after leaving the hospital, Merle sat up straight with confusion, but kept his mouth shut to see where Daryl was going. And his confusion grew even more when his brother pulled into the driveway of an old, shabby house in dire need of some fixing, but better than the house they’d grown up in by far. When Merle spotted his motorbike in the garage, he realized that Daryl really must have packed all their shit and moved here. He was left speechless.

The inside of the house was almost completely bare except for the kitchen and two mattresses in the two bedrooms. Merle recognized Daryl’s clothes in a bag next to one, his crossbow hanging from a hook by the door, Daryl’s toothbrush in the bathroom. Mom’s old pans and pots in a kitchen cupboard. And that was it.

“Sold our house ‘n’ shit months ago. We been livin’ in the truck mostly, sometimes crashin’ on Len’s couch. But then I had ta take you here an’ I thought fuck it, better get outta here, ‘nyway.” Daryl filled him in, leading the way out into the backyard.

“Where d’you get the money from?” Merle wondered incredulously.

“Knew how ta keep most a it from you. You wasn’t ‘xactly usin’ that head a yours a lot in the end. I only ever kept ‘nough so you could buy your next hit. Been savin’ a bit an’ I got a job here.” Daryl stared ahead unseeingly for a while, going through the routine motions for lighting a cigarette. When it was lit he seemed to remember he had company, so he passed it on to Merle, taking a new one out and lighting it. “Folks here don’ care that we’re Dixons. ‘s good.”

It was Daryl’s way of saying he liked the town and wanted to stay, Merle found out in time. So stay they did, just a short way from Atlanta, in King County.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, there's some credit due to superblackmarket. This time, it's "Filibustero" that inspired me. It made me want to include an explanation for Daryl's ruined pretty-face (still fucking pretty, if you ask me). I stuck a little closer to the real story of Norman's accident, though. But just like Merle in Filibustero, my Merle's pleased with Daryl's good looks ruined as a result.


	5. Walk The Line

Merle had saved Daryl’s unborn life at the age of thirteen and Daryl had saved his twenty-three years later, repaying the favor not because he thought he owed his brother, but out of love. A love Merle had never done anything to earn, if he was being absolutely honest with himself. Time to give a little bit back, he decided.

Daryl had found another mechanic’s job, helping out at the local hunting and fishing supply store, too. It was the same business, actually, run by an old man named Dale. Why choose either of your passions when you could make a living out of both and save the rent for a second store, too, the old fox argued with a good-natured smile when Merle asked.

If Daryl could hold a full-time job, so could ol’ Merle, he told himself when he applied for every open position in town that he felt he could even do a half-assed job at. As fate would have it – and it was very artistic and humorous about this one – he was offered a position not too long after and Daryl laughed his ass off when Merle came home, proud and very pleased with himself and announced the public library had hired him. Merle had half a mind to piss in his ungrateful brother’s boots for that.

But no matter how much his baby brother taunted him, he had made a promise to himself to try and try hard. So he made an effort to look as presentable as possible on his first day, ignoring the skeptical eyebrow Daryl quirked at him for it. He would deny with his last breath that he had been nervous standing before the building at eight in the morning. Really, he just wanted to make things right. That couldn’t be impossibly hard, could it? He swallowed around the lump in his throat, telling himself to man-up and stop being such a pussy about the whole thing. It was just a job, for fuck’s sake and at the public library, too.

A grey haired woman greeted him by name straight away as he walked through the door and told him she’d expected him. He had half a mind to ask how she knew who he was and what his business was there, but he figured since the town was so small, everyone probably knew who he was already. So he just produced a small smile, trying to make it look friendly and less like a grimace. It felt like a grimace anyhow. She smirked a little at that and motioned for him to follow.

Her name, Merle learned – and made sure to repeat it in his head every few seconds so he wouldn’t forget it – was Carol and he followed her around all day, familiarizing himself with his new workplace. He tried to remember the last time he had been in a library and came up short; school maybe. Used to a lot of noise and folks yelling at work, Merle felt a little strange at the end of the day, having spent most of it in silence. There were hushed whispers around him when he walked the rows and all talking had been done in a low tone. The irony, Merle mused, that he, who liked his life loud and busy, would find work in a place so quiet, that even Daryl appeared like a chatterbox in comparison.

What bugged him most, though, was that he actually liked the place. It was such a contrast to what his life had been until now that it seemed like a perfect extension to the fresh start Daryl had decided to make for them both. What he didn’t like, though, was the computer. Never in his life had he even touched one before. It being the early twenty-first century, it was becoming more and more popular to use computers at home, but they had found their true calling in bureaucracy. In the library, it helped with all the paperwork, of which there were tons, by the looks of it.

Now, Carol had left him the choice to use the typewriter if he felt more comfortable with it, but since he had never used one of those, either, he figured he might as well go with the flow of modern technology and learn how to use that weird thing. That was, if he could remember how to turn the cursed thing on. Carol was tactful enough not to laugh or comment on his complete lack of “IT skills”, as she called it. She did give him a rather thick manual on how to operate “Windows 98”, though. He decided to play nice and took it home; maybe he could make some sense out of the whole computer gibberish.

Daryl waited for him after work to take him home in the truck, even though Merle could have walked and Daryl usually worked longer than Merle would. But even if his brother tried to hide it, he was just as curious and excited about Merle’s new job as he was, so he chose not to mention Daryl going home early so he could interrogate Merle. When he showed Daryl the manual, he only laughed a little, admitting that he had as much a clue about computers as Merle had.

Daryl even went as far as sit and go through the first chapter together with Merle that night, drinking beer and joking about funny expressions and weird stuff you could do with such a computer that Merle would have sworn no one living reality would ever need. But obviously, librarians lived in their own, fey world.

 

\---***---

 

It was Christmas before he knew it, the New Year was just round the corner and the library was closed over the holidays. Daryl was on call for the garage since him and Merle had no family to visit and didn’t exactly celebrate the holiday, either. But they had booze and old movies from the library that Carol had let him have until next year, telling him to have a good time and be nice to his brother. Her and Daryl had hit it off the first time Merle had taken them both out for drinks. They were both rather quiet, private people, but Carol had a strong motherly air about her that made people adore her. She also had a young daughter, Sophia, who was even shier than Carol; except with Daryl, somehow, who had shaken her hand upon meeting before telling Carol she had done Sophia’s hair wrong and he would fix it for her, if Sophia would let him. She did. And the two of them spent the rest of the day playing and dressing Sophia up while Merle and Carol had Irish coffee in the living room.

Carol had told Merle about her dead husband, who’d used to abuse both her and Sophia; Merle told her about their dad. Then she asked him about Daryl and he didn’t know what to say anymore. Because, truth be told, even through all those years, he had never come to figure his brother out. He knew how to live with him, how to tease and humor him, how to protect and how to hurt him, but who Daryl was, in essence, was still a mystery to him. So that was what he told her. And she smiled like she understood something only a mother could see in a young man.

Just as he was about to ask, Sophia came running into the room, calling “MommyMommyMommy” like only kids could and pressed something in Carol’s hand.

“Daryl says he hasn’t done it in a while. You gotta show him.” She announced, taking a seat next to Carol and holding her hand out to her, fingers spread wide. Merle eyed the little object in Carol’s hand that turned out to be a bottle of cherry red nail polish. Merle looked up as his brother came to stand in front of Carol, pointedly avoiding his eyes; clearly he remembered the last nail polish incident.

“Well, we’ll have to teach him, then.” Carol agreed mock-serious and grabbed for Daryl’s left hand, unscrewing the bottle with the other. Daryl rocked back on his heels, shooting Merle a quick look. He was scared Merle would freak out again, he realized. So he deliberately leaned back in his seat, pointedly sipping coffee and watching Carol apply a thick coat to Daryl’s nails, making tutting noises and commenting on his chewed-down nails. When she was done, Daryl lifted his hand to his face to inspect the result.

“Ain’t had any on ma fingers since I was a kid.” Daryl comments lowly, turning his hand back and forth, examining the way the polish had been applied.

“Were you Goth or Punk?” Carol smiled a little, probably picturing his brother in all black with chains and whatnot hanging off every inch of him. At least that was Merle’s idea of a Punk.

“Nah.” Daryl shook his head, then cast Merle a sidelong glance. “Couldn’ understand the diff’rence ‘tween boys ‘n’ girls.” He explained in Merle’s words, giving a little snort at the end that made it pretty clear that he didn’t believe them anymore. But Carol understood what he meant; probably better than Merle had.

“Do you know the difference now?” She asked as she handed him the nail polish.

“Yeah, I know it perfectly well now.” Daryl said and he and Carol shared a smile, a twinkle in their eyes like they shared a secret and Merle suddenly felt like he had just missed something big. “C’mon, Sophia. Le’s paint your nails.” Daryl tossed the little bottle in the air, catching it behind his back as he turned around. Sophia giggled happily at that and ran back to her room. Daryl followed her at a more leisurely pace, giving a red-painted wave over his shoulder.

 

\---***---

 

In a cruel act of fucking with Merle, Carol had given Daryl nail polish in five different colors for Christmas: Bordeaux, black, mate olive, pastel rose and just to fuck with him – Merle was sure – glittering gold.

To be fair, she had also given Merle nail polish remover. And a book called “PCs for Dummies”. Funny woman. Like he hadn’t already figured out how to crash the computer at work so he could knock off early on Fridays. Then again, she might have figured out his motives and this was the political way of telling him to cut the crap.

Just to spite him, Daryl cracked the bottle of golden nail polish straight away and painted his nails – fingers _and_ toes –, relishing in the blood pooling in Merle’s head as he tried to swallow all the words threatening to spill over his lips. He only just managed.

That was, until he woke up on Boxing Day with big hearts painted on his own nails in every color Daryl possessed now. Seriously, though, who did something like that to his brother?

So he jumped out of bed, yelling bloody murder and chasing his brother around the property for an hour. Later, he scrubbed the stuff off his hands, mumbling curses under his breath while his smug brother cooked breakfast. Then he took off his clothes to have a shower and noticed the polish on his toe nails for the first time. The only reason Daryl escaped a beating for that was that Merle was buck ass naked and running around in the snow was too cold. Also, he was hungry and wanted breakfast. So he gave in.

Daryl kept the golden nails until he had to go to work again in the New Year, making sure to wave them in Merle’s face as much as possible. Merle gathered the five bottles and gave them to Sophia as soon as Carol got back from her relatives, ignoring Daryl’s smug grin. Oh, he would get back at the little shit for that!

 

\---***---

 

It didn’t take a genius to notice that life in King County was easier than before to both his baby brother and Merle. Daryl had been right in claiming that absolutely no one seemed to have any associations with their last name. That didn’t mean that they never became subject to prejudice and stereotypical slurs, of course, but somehow Merle’s blood didn’t start boiling when he heard the insults, his temper didn’t flare anymore and he met them with a smirk or a laugh instead of a fist. When these words were directed at his brother that was a different story, though.

On Friday nights, Merle had made a habit of going out for a drink or two at the local bar, Daryl tagging along sometimes. It was on such an occasion that Roger Flint, who ran the struggling butcher shop on the far end of town, slapped an unsteady hand on Merle’s shoulder, leaning into him in that unpleasant way that drunks tended to invade people’s personal bubble and slurred, “Well, if it ain’t the incestuous redneck brothers.”

“Fuck off, Flint.” Merle grumbled, shrugging the hand off his shoulder. The other barked out a laugh.

“Just kiddin’, Merle. I know you chase pussy harder than anyone else in town.” He amended in a generous tone, going for a pat on Merle’s back, but missing by a foot. “Not so sure ‘bout your brother, though.” He chuckled, peering in his bottle to check the remaining content.

That was why Roger Flint was admitted to emergency twenty minutes later with glass splinters all over his face, one of them piercing his eyelid and threatening to scrape over his eye whenever he blinked. And Merle made an acquaintance with the local police force.

King County Sheriff’s Department was a small place, but still bigger than their home town’s. Merle met the night shift, starting with Tara, the young deputy at the front desk, the Sheriff himself who passed him on the way out and the two teams on shift that night. The two cops who had taken him in, accompanied by Daryl who would be giving a witness statement, sat him in one of the interrogation rooms and disappeared for a while to fill out some paperwork, if Merle understood anything about police procedures. So he waited. He considered asking for a lawyer right away, but decided to hear what the cops had to say, first. None of them had seemed all too bothered that he had smashed a glass bottle in Flint’s face. The guy was a nuisance, really.

The door opened with a click and a drag over the floor the further it was swung open. The cop stepping through gave the thing an annoyed glare, standing aside to let his partner in. The shorter one sat down opposite of him and spread a file out on the table.

“Remind me to tell Abraham to have a look at this annoying thing.” The taller one told his partner as he dragged the door shut again. The partner looked at Merle and they shared a small laugh at that.

“Why don’t you get a screwdriver and fix it yourself?” The sitting cop suggested. His nametag read “Grimes”.

“C’mon, brother, you know I ain’t good with that stuff.” The other admitted with a whine and Merle snickered again. Deputy Grimes wiped the grin off his face in order to put on his professional cop face.

“Mr. Dixon, my name is Deputy Rick Grimes, this is Deputy Shane Walsh. You have been arrested for assault.” Grimes began, but his partner interrupted him.

“And may I unofficially add: Nice one. I feel like punching Flint’s teeth in every time I see him. He’s always hanging round the school, molesting the girls and I wish I could lock him away for something, but he’s got a clean slate.” Walsh rambled, but a glare from his partner silenced him.

“Well, ’m happy I could do y’all a favor.” Merle replied with a shit-eating grin. “But cut that ‘Mr. Dixon’ crap. ’m Merle. Mr. Dixon was ma asshole father.”

“Merle.” Grimes caught his attention again. “Your brother has given his statement. He said you were provoked. That doesn’t change the fact that you assaulted Mr. Flint. We have plenty of witnesses for the act and Mr. Flint is in surgery now with some serious wounds.”

“What Rick means to say is: We can’t just let you off the hook, no matter how much we want to.” Walsh concluded, earning himself another exasperated look from Grimes.

“Shane, please, you can’t say something like that!” The man sighed, running a hand over his face, regarding his partner tiredly through his fingers. Walsh just grinned.

“Why not? Give the man the facts, will you?” He turned to Merle. “We’ll see that we can save you doing time for this one. It’s plain to see that you’re trying to turn your life around and we believe in giving a man a second chance. Especially this soft-hearted bastard here.” He gestured towards Grimes, who chucked a pen at him for his loose lip. It was Walsh’s turn to snicker at him.

“Anything you would like to say in your defense?” Grimes prompted, but Merle had learned long ago that you better say as little as possible to a cop. So he shook his head. “Alright. We’ll keep you over night and have the judge see you in the morning.”

The judge set his court date and released him without bail after giving him a thorough once-over. “You probably know this, but please don’t leave town without notifying the Sheriff’s Department beforehand until your hearing.”

“Of course.” Merle nodded, trying hard not to let his voice drip with sarcasm. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been released without bail. It was a nice change. He gave Daryl a quick hug after they’d left the courtroom.

Nice town, nice cops, nice judge. Somehow, he couldn’t quite believe his luck.

Three weeks later, he was found guilty, but sentenced to community service instead of jail.

On his way out, he caught Walsh’s eye, who winked at him. Grimes next to him badly hid his smile behind his hand.

 

\---***---

 

Merle learned how community in King County worked shortly after the incident. He was fairly sure that Daryl had figured it out long before him; he was better at reading and understanding people than Merle was, even though he still interacted with them as little as possible.

Roger Flint had come out of surgery just fine with scarcely any scars at all. But the whole business had left a visible impact on him. He hadn’t just gotten his face smashed in, but Merle’s low sentence had been a clear statement of what the town thought of him. Word got round quickly, as it was prone to happen in a small town, and the struggling butchery soon lost even the last of its customers.

When it became known that all the employees would be losing their jobs, though, the other butchery next to town hall put up an advertisement, announcing that they were looking to expand their personnel. And sure enough, all three employees of Flint’s butchery were hired in a matter of days.

It was a scary thing to watch, that a community could hold such power. Especially since he had been on the other end of a town’s hatred most of his life, even if that had been completely undeserved – well, mostly undeserved, anyway. It served as a lesson to Merle not to piss these people off. He had never cared what other people thought of him or how they treated him, because it had usually been negative, no matter what he did. But here, where he had experienced the kindness of so many of these people, he couldn’t bear the thought that he might fall from grace and be treated the way Flint had – and deserving it this time. It was the same lesson he had never understood in prison, because it had never worked in reality in their hometown. Here, where people had only ever done right by him, he thought he might come to fully understand what “love thy neighbor” meant.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dale giving Daryl the job as a mechanic was inspired by several other fics, who did the same thing, but mostly by RickylLover's "Happy Family", in which Dale is undeniably the best character ever!


	6. Rick Fucking Grimes

Sometimes, Merle would check the calendar and not recognize the date it told him. He typed it on the computer dozens of times five days a week, but somehow it made no impression on him. He had long since forgotten his own age, but he watched Daryl turn twenty-six, then twenty-seven and twenty-eight. On Daryl’s twenty-ninth birthday, the realization that he had never seen Daryl with a woman ever in his life hit him with the force of a freight train. He had never seen him talk to one unless he had to – Carol and Sophia being the exception. He had never seen him flirt with one or follow one with his eyes. Daryl had never brought a girl home.

As far as he knew, his baby brother could count the women he had had close relations with on one hand, not counting their mother. And two of those had been Merle’s girlfriends, two friends Merle had introduced him to and one the daughter of a friend. Daryl’s life had been dominated by the male population and suddenly, that scared Merle. So he went on a mission to change it.

For weeks, he brought girls home, pushed Daryl towards the female population in the bar or the diner around the corner, made sure to watch porn every time Daryl came home and even asked Carol to introduce his brother to some of her friends. But the woman had merely smiled at him in pity and told him to stop trying to hook Daryl up. When his brother really got the shits about it and jumped in his truck to stay gone for a whole weekend, Merle eventually gave up.

Maybe his baby brother was just a late-bloomer?

 

\---***---

 

A few months later, Merle ran into the two cops, Grimes and Walsh, in the gun shop come garage. They were both leaning against the counter, talking and laughing with Daryl, Walsh telling some story and waving his arms animatedly. Merle could have heard them from a mile away. Just as he entered, Grimes and Daryl shared a look, clearly showing they weren’t buying Walsh’s bullshit.

“Oh cuttit, Shane, ain’t no one gonna believe y’all did that.” Daryl snorted, catching sight of Merle and nodding to him in greeting. The cops finally noticed him, too.

“Hi, Merle.” Grimes greeted him with a smile.

“Yo, Merle.” Walsh grinned at him, arms crossed over his chest and hands tucked underneath his arms like Daryl liked to do, too.

“Hey. Sorry ta crash the party, but I was wond’rin’ where you were.” Merle explained, suddenly feeling like an outsider and wondering when the three of them had become close enough to joke around and call each other by their first names.

“Sorry, shoulda texted you. Didn’t notice what time it was. Rick jus’ dropped by with ‘is car earlier.” Daryl apologized, ducking his head like he had since a kid when he was being reprimanded, subconsciously expecting a beating.

“’s a’right.” Merle reassured him. There was an uncomfortable silence in the shop all of a sudden and Merle felt like he should maybe leave the three of them alone. So he told Daryl he would put dinner on, so he’d better be home in forty and left. Later, over dinner, Merle asked his brother if he knew the two cops personally, but Daryl just shrugged and kept quiet.

 

\---***---

 

Carol always knew the latest gossip. No matter what it was, from who the baker’s wife had hired for the garden to how many miles Jim from next doors had been over the speed limit when they had suspended his license last Thursday. So when word got round that Rick Grimes was filing for divorce, Carol knew before the whole town had a chance go crazy about it.

Him and his wife Lori had been struggling for a while, she let Merle know like she had seen it firsthand. Then again, she probably had, since she played bridge with Lori on Wednesdays. Their son, Carl, had apparently been the one to snap from the heavy tension between his parents and told them to grow up and get a divorce if they couldn’t make things work; or so he had told Sophia. So Rick had taken his son’s advice and presented Lori with the papers two days later.

Now, rumors were flying wildly around town. The waitress at lunch told Carol she thought Lori was having an affair. Baxter, caretaker in the Sheriff’s Department, said he had heard Rick tell Shane he thought he was gay. Sally, the mail lady, was positive Rick was gay _and_ having an affair with Shane. Carol didn’t believe either of them.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure Rick’s lack of interest in his wife played a big role in this. Lori said he hadn’t touched her in years. But Lori is a very hard woman to please, anyhow. She needs to feel treated like a princess and Rick probably just had enough. They have been like cats and dogs for as long as I’ve known them.” She confided in Merle.

Later that day, when he was watching TV with Daryl, he mentioned hearing about the divorce. Daryl, though, just hummed and Merle figured he must have already known.

“You knew? So what happened?” Merle prodded, feeling way too curious to care about the fact that this really was none of his business. The whole town was sticking their noses in the mess, so why shouldn’t he?

“Not much ta say. Met Lori once, ungrateful bitch you ask me. Rick’s just fed up with ‘er bullshit.” Daryl pretty much confirmed what Carol had said.

“So he ain’t a fag screwin’ his partner?” Merle chuckled, trying to picture the two men together and nearly laughing his ass off at the absurdity. Nah, that wasn’t what fags looked like, he found.

“Ain’t know nothin’ ‘bout that. Topic ain’t never come up.” Daryl said, more defensively than Merle thought necessary.

“The fuck’s that s’posed ta mean, ‘topic ain’t never come up’?” Merle sat up, staring at his brother like he had lost his mind. But Daryl refused to meet his eye or say anything else. After a while, he stood up, left his half-full beer on the coffee table and wished Merle a good night.

 

\---***---

 

As much as Merle would have liked to remain indifferent about that particular business, the Grimes’ divorce stayed number one conversation topic for over a year. Rick moved out soon after making it official, Carl stayed with his mother. They agreed on joint custody and while actual interaction between the two adults became an icy experience – Carol told him – they managed to stay civil with each other most of the time. Neither of them ever took a stand on the accusations of infidelity on either side, which only served to spike people’s curiosity even more.

Even after the divorce was over and done with, folks couldn’t seem to shut up about Rick, mostly. Merle could only roll his eyes when he heard girls swooning about the man, talking about how handsome and perfect he was. Blessed be Daryl, though, for he was always good in those situations to make an accidentally-on-purpose loud comment on how Rick’s farts could strip paint off the walls. That usually did the job of giving Merle a break. What he couldn’t get over so easily was that Daryl now spent even more time with the cop, hanging out with him after work or on weekends, sometimes even drinking at their place, where Rick would crash on the couch afterwards. If Merle wanted or not, he was confronted with Rick Grimes no matter what.

One summer night, Merle found the two of them lying on the hood of a car at the garage, passing a bottle of Jack between them, looking up to watch the sky turn purple and talking quietly. Merle was on his way back home from doing the groceries – if Daryl cooked, he might as well man up and help a little, his brother had told him – and had felt like checking the garage to see if Daryl was still there and would give him a ride home. It wasn’t uncommon for the two of them to hang around the garage.

What threw him off about the scene a little was the way Rick had draped his legs across Daryl’s, ankles crossed on top of Daryl’s shins and looking like they belonged there; and what was even weirder was that Daryl, who hated being touched by anyone – except maybe for Sophia – looked perfectly at ease with their position. Merle stood there for a while, taking in the sight.

“What’cha wan’, Merle?” Daryl hollered at him without looking over. Of course he knew Merle was there.

“Came ta ask you fer a ride, but I can see you’re busy.” Merle said, sitting down his bags nevertheless. But the two men didn’t move from their position on the car.

“He can’t drive, anyway. Drank too much.” Rick chipped in, waving the bottle in Merle’s general direction.

“Bullshit.” Daryl snorted and slapped Rick’s chest, receiving a kick to the shin in return. In a flurry of movement, Daryl suddenly had Rick in a head-lock, ruffling Rick’s curly strands viciously while the other man held the booze out of reach, so Daryl wouldn’t spill any. He didn’t even try to fight back – which wouldn’t have made a difference anyhow, Merle knew his brother’s strength perfectly well – and just let it happen to him, protesting weakly, but mainly giggling.

“Oi, get a room!” Merle protested and got flipped off by both for it. Merle snorted and decided to keep walking. Daryl wouldn’t be home for a while.

 

\---***---

 

Five years after leaving their home town, curiosity got the better of Merle. The library was closed for a few weeks during summer, so he had time, anyway. When he suggested the idea of going back home to Daryl, he was met with anger, hurt and fear. Anger at the memories; hurt at the thought that Merle might not appreciate what Daryl did for him; fear that Merle might want to stay there. But Merle pulled him into one of their rare hugs and told him he was wrong. Reluctantly, Daryl agreed to the idea and they started planning. Even though their home town wasn’t all that far from King County, Daryl took three weeks off so they could turn the trip into a proper vacation, promising each other not to stick around in that horrible town for longer than a few days.

Merle told Carol about their plans and she excitedly told him about all the places in the north she had always wanted to see, dreaming about dense woods and getting lost on purpose. On a whim, Merle invited her and Sophia along. She turned down the offer first, pointing out that it was his holiday with his brother and she didn’t want to come between that. Merle told her that was bullshit and texted Daryl to ask for permission.

[Merle] baby bro, cn we tk carol

[Daryl] where

[Merle] home

[Daryl] u sure bout that

[Merle] yeah

[Daryl] love 2

Merle grinned and showed Carol the conversation, who in turn got even more excited. But then she remembered that she didn’t own a car and Daryl’s truck wasn’t a crew cab. All morning long, Merle tried to avoid the inevitable, which was to tell Daryl they needed a second car. Because he knew who his brother would be asking to join them and he really wasn’t sure if he wanted to go on a road trip with a cop. Especially one that was joined at the hip to his brother lately. In the end, he swallowed his pride – which was quite a feat.

[Merle] need notha car ask officer friendly

[Daryl] who

[Merle] rick

[Daryl] wtf

Well, it was true, Rick _was_ Officer Friendly in his mind. He had “southern Gentleman” shoved so far up his ass that Merle was just waiting on the day he would choke on it. Then again, Daryl seemed very talented at bringing out the not-so-tame side in the man when they were lying shit-faced drunk on the carpet in the living room. Maybe Merle just had to keep Rick drunk for the whole trip.

[Daryl] hes checkin w/ the sheriff

The reply came a few minutes later. And by the end of the day, their party was complete. They all met up at Merle and Daryl’s place to do some planning. Merle and Daryl would go in their truck, taking camping gear in the back while Rick would take Carol and Sophia in his car. A short debate later, it was decided that the trip might be a little more interesting for Sophia if Carl came along, too. Merle had never met Rick’s kid, but he supposed as long as he didn’t have to take care of him or behave differently in his presence, he didn’t care about one kid more or less. He and Sophia were two years apart, her having made 13 a few weeks ago and Carl approaching 11.

In case of any teenage drama, Merle would just lock them in Rick’s car.

 


	7. Truths and Pretenses

They left King County early on a Saturday morning and took the more remote routes up north. Merle, who had never before his rehab been to Atlanta and had thus never bothered familiarizing himself with Georgia’s geography, had made the effort to look some of the routes up on Google Maps – he prided himself in having worked the whole googling stuff out – and realized that it was technically a drive of only an hour and half. Somehow, the capital had always seemed so far away to him, no part of his world. But King County wasn’t even thirty minutes from the outskirts of the city where he had gone to rehab, a little ways to the east, but further north than the capital. Since that revelation had thrown him completely off, he left navigating to Daryl and took the driver’s seat.

They took their time, stopping a few times along the way, mainly to show the kids around a little so they wouldn’t get bored. Just before they reached their hometown’s district, Merle pulled the car into a rest area and shut off the engine. In the rear view mirror, he saw Rick following his example. Daryl looked at him expectantly.

“Thought I’d give you a last moment a peace, you know, ta steel yourself.” Merle shrugged, not one to admit he was doing it more for his own sake than Daryl’s. He slipped out of the car before his brother could call his bluff. Rick and the others joined him by his car, looking around the dense woods with quiet admiration. Allowing himself to see the area through their eyes, Merle supposed it was a pretty place. “Y’all fancy a walk?” Merle grinned to hide the distaste in his voice. They really shouldn’t have come here; whose stupid idea had that been again? Oh, that’s right: His.

“Yeah, I could stretch my legs.” Rick agreed readily, massaging the muscle around his knee with an exaggerated wince. Merle snorted. Pussy. On the other side of the truck, Daryl pulled his crossbow out of his hunting bag and motioned for the others to follow him into the woods.

Daryl took point, showing the kids how to find tracks and follow them, soon letting Carl and Sophia lead their way even though they lost the track pretty quickly and followed non-existent traces of animals. Daryl let them, smiling secretly when they got excited upon stumbling over the remnants of a squirrel’s breakfast. Rick and Carol strolled after them at a more leisurely pace, giggling to each other about their children’s enthusiasm. Merle made sure to stay behind a good few paces, content with letting the scene calm his raging mind.

They didn’t wander far; Daryl looped them back to where they came from neatly, without the children noticing that he was steering them. They walked for an hour and Merle reveled in the calm it blessed him with, but ultimately, they emerged from the woods and he blinked into the blinding light of reality. The world hadn’t stopped or ended while they had been gone from it, secluded in their own little bubble. Daryl slipped into the driver’s seat without a comment and took them back on the road, driving the last few miles that Merle couldn’t bring himself to conquer.

They were back home by late afternoon. Daryl took them to the house they grew up in – or rather, the property they grew up on. For there was no trace of the house itself left. Daryl had sold it cheap, knowing it wasn’t worth much and not having a whole lot of time, either. But when Merle saw what they had built in its stead, he turned to meet Daryl’s gaze, speechless. He didn’t know whether he should stay in the car or walk towards the retirement home, gaping like an idiot. In the end, he chose to stay where he was, watching old folks on the veranda watch them and find a sense of peace in knowing that a place that held so much pain for two kids growing up could give the town’s grannies and gramps a home to rest and live their last days surrounded by the beauty of north Georgia’s woods. There was something poetic in that.

Merle had expected pain and heartache upon returning to their home, but the quiet sense of joy blooming in his chest now gave him the courage to have Daryl drive them to town. They took the same roads as they always had and nothing seemed to have changed. The same people, the same buildings, the same hateful glares thrown their way when someone recognized them. Hell, they even got pulled over by the cops. They had been about to enter the parking lot of the diner when the cops took a left from the other side of the road and blocked their way. Merle saw Rick stop behind them.

Blake and Cocker got out of the cruiser and Merle groaned in exasperation. Daryl waited patiently for the pigs to walk up to them, one on each side, hands on their guns. Cocker fixed Merle with a malicious glare, but Merle just gave him the finger and turned towards Daryl’s conversation with Phillip Blake.

“Somethin’ wrong, _officer_?” Daryl drawled, hands placed in plain sight on the steering wheel. He wouldn’t be so stupid as to give those pigs an excuse to shoot him.

“Well, well. If it ain’t the Dixons. Ain’t seen you in a long and peaceful while. Here to catch up with your buddies? Back in the business?” Blake sneered, giving their old truck a quick once over. It was a bit ratty, but in much better shape than their first one. Out of a corner of his eye, he caught sight of Rick marching up to them with calculated steps.

“Good afternoon, deputies. What seems to be the problem, here?” Merle had to do a double take to recognize Daryl’s friend. Rick seemed at least a head taller than usual, standing with squared shoulders, eyes blazing with well-contained fury, one hand on his hip where his gun usually hung and the other waving his police ID in Blake’s face.

“Excuse me, but who are _you_?” Blake ignored the official document under his nose and rather stuck said body part up to regard Rick with cold arrogance.

“So sorry, you should have told me you can’t read.” Rick’s voice dripped with sarcasm and he pointed to his name on the ID, following the letters while he read them out to Blake. “I’m Rick Grimes, Sheriff’s Deputy of the King County Sheriff’s Department. Also, I’m on holiday with these two gentlemen. Which I suggest you let us continue now, since you pulled them over for no obvious reason. Or is this a random traffic check?” Daryl’s hands on the steering wheel gripped so tight that Merle could hear it creak – not from anger, but suppressed laughter, he figured. He was fairly close to bursting himself. Blake’s face was just priceless.

“Of course it is!” He barked at Rick, who smiled sweetly in return, his eyes still promising bloody murder. Rick slipped the ID back in his pocket and let one arm hang casually into the truck through the open window; Blake’s eyes flicked to it for a moment, knowing fully well what the gesture was supposed to mean. Daryl calmly handed the annoying officer his papers without request, but Rick intercepted and passed them on to Blake himself after making sure everything was there and in order. Merle bit the inside of his cheek bloody trying not to laugh.

With Rick present, the cops couldn’t do anything like take their truck apart to find something at fault just so they could fine them or drag them in for a night, which no doubt made Blade seething with fury. All he could do was scan the documents and hand them back with a growl.

“Excellent. Now that that has been settled, I wish you a very pleasant day, deputies.” Rick chirped in the fakest nice voice Merle had ever heard, his body radiating anger and arrogance in heavy waves. If he squinted just right, he thought he could recognize protectiveness in the mix, too. Blake glared at him for a while longer, until Rick very pointedly lifted his hand hanging through the window and laid it on Daryl’s shoulder. When the pig’s eyes flitted back up to Rick’s face, he was met with the deadliest fury Merle had ever seen. So the two bastards fled, tails between their legs.

Maybe Rick wasn’t such a bad bloke after all, Merle decided.

 

\---***---

 

Merle ended up drinking most of the booze they bought over the trip himself and having close to the greatest time of his life. In spite of his fears, Rick turned out to be rather entertaining company and quite lax with rules that didn’t involve safety and health hazards. He even ignored Merle, Daryl and – to his great surprise – Carol smoking some weed one night after the kids had gone to bed. He then dug out a story or two of him and Shane misbehaving in their youth. Most of those starred the two of them getting involved in fights and more often than not getting their asses handed to them, because Shane couldn’t keep his mouth shut when he should.

As far as holding his liquor went, Rick was about average, Merle supposed. He couldn’t keep up with Merle or Daryl – which never failed to make Merle feel smug about it – but he was never really shit-faced drunk. Said he wouldn’t neglect his parental duties or some shit. Not that Merle really minded; more booze for him, he figured.

The kids did get on his nerves quite a bit, though. He even went through with the promise to himself and locked them in Rick’s car once, but his brother chewed his ear off for that one afterwards, so for the sake of domestic peace, Merle begrudgingly promised not to do “something like that” again. Whatever that entailed. He could always claim ignorance afterwards, he figured. So he let it slide.

All in all, the three weeks were over far too quickly and Merle found himself driving Rick’s car home so he could bitch to Carol about having to get back to work and Daryl could spend some quality time with Rick, or something. On the way back, they passed through their hometown again, just so Merle could give it the finger and toss a few strategically placed, empty beer cans out of the window. Once back in King County, he dropped Carol and Sophia off, swapped cars with Rick, bade him and Carl goodbye and went home with Daryl. When their house came into view, Merle already missed camping out in the woods again. The heavy set to Daryl’s shoulders told him his brother felt the same.

All good things come to an end, he supposed and slapped a consoling hand on Daryl’s shoulder. Then he cackled madly and dashed out of the car and towards the door, yelling “Last one to the door has to unpack!” over his shoulder.

 

\---***---

 

It wasn’t like he’d never expected to see Rick Grimes on his doorstep again, he mused silently when he stared at the man standing on his porch a mere two hours later. Though he had always thought it would still be in his lifetime and not as a zombie version of the man.

“Fuck, you look like shit!” Merle announced after one look at his face, stepping aside to let the man in and already calling for Daryl. He sat Rick down on the couch, not trusting him to stand upright for too long and went to the kitchen to grab some drinks.

“Rick? Wha’s wrong?” He heard Daryl’s concerned voice behind him. Merle walked over to the two men with two glasses and two bottles in his hands. He set down the glasses and filled them with Jack Daniel’s, opening the beer bottle for himself. He took a moment to wonder when he had become so thoughtful. Must have been his brother’s soft heart rubbing off on him.

Rick grabbed the glass and downed the contents straightaway, reaching a shaking hand for the bottle to give himself a refill, but Daryl snatched it away and did it for him. Rick stared ahead unseeingly for a while.

“When I dropped Carl off, Shane was with Lori.” Rick eventually choked out, voice horrified and oh so hurt. Last time Merle had checked, Rick had been divorced. But Shane had been his best from his early childhood on, so Merle supposed finding him with his ex-wife must have been a blow to Rick’s trust in the man, especially since Shane had always supported him in his divorce, Daryl had told him – not that he listened to that kind of stuff. It had just stuck with him, really. Kind of.

Daryl ducked his head low, dropping his eyes to his own glass before taking a hearty gulp. “That sucks.” He offered and Rick gave a pained grimace that was probably supposed to be a smile. “Wan’ me ta punch his teeth in?” To that, Rick actually laughed and graced Daryl with a tiny, fond smile.

“Nah, I can fight my own battles.” The cop said and leaned back on the couch with a heavy sigh. Daryl shot Merle a quick look, telling him to leave them alone and Merle complied; he wasn’t exactly crazy about sitting through this drama session.

“Sorry, man.” He mumbled as he got up from his position on the coffee table and disappeared into his room.

He could still hear the two of them talking when he went to bed a few hours later.

 

\---***---

 

Merle wasn’t sure what had woken him up for the few sleepy moments it took his mind to drift back into a conscious state. It might have been a possum on the roof, he reasoned. Or something in the garden. It was a hot night, so he had left the window open in hopes of catching a nice cool breeze. What he did catch instead were noises he would be doing his damnest to try and forget for weeks afterwards.

It was quiet at first. A series of barely audible sounds Merle couldn’t identify. As he woke up fully, he noises grew in volume until there was a loud, unmistakable moan to be heard. A bucket of ice dropped in his stomach when it dawned on him that those sounds must be coming from Daryl’s room.

Late-bloomer, my ass, the ever sarcastic voice in his head supplied helpfully.

Merle groaned and tried to bury his head under the pillow. Just then, there was a choked scream, followed by a rather loud exclamation of “God, yes! Do that again!” and Merle’s world turned ass-over-tits completely. Because that voice wasn’t Daryl’s, even though it was distinctly _male_.

It was Rick’s voice.

In an act of self-torture, Merle ripped the pillow off his head, disbelieving that he had really just heard what his treacherous ears were trying to tell him he had heard. But he soon got another ear-full of Rick’s sounds. How high were the chances that Rick was having sex with someone else in Daryl’s room? Surely nowhere near impossible. Daryl must have let Rick sleep in his bed, because he hadn’t had the heart to send the man home in his state and he was on the couch himself. Yes, that sounded plausible to him.

So he listened for any indications of the identity of Rick’s partner, trying to block the cop’s noises out. It wasn’t an easy task, though, the guy just made _so many_ of them. And as time wore on and things apparently got rougher in the bedroom, Rick’s moans and pants turned into drawn-out groans and short cries. There was a pause in Rick’s noises somewhere along the lines and in their stead Merle heard loud shuffling, telling him they were switching positions. Then the torture resumed.

Merle was about to give up when Rick’s partner finally gave away his identity. It was short, a low “C’mere”. But it was definitely and distinctly Daryl’s voice.

And just like that, Merle hit the end of that particular road and had to drop all pretenses. A memory resurfaced, from a conversation happening years ago and Merle finally understood what it had meant.

_“Do you know the difference now?”_ Carol had asked and Merle had taken it for a joke.

_“Yeah, I know it perfectly well now.”_ Daryl had answered. Merle laughed a bitter laugh at his own blindness. Yeah, his baby brother knew exactly what the difference between men and women was; he knew exactly that he wanted a man and not a woman. He had proven that time and again over all those years and Merle had always ignored the signs. Hell, Daryl had probably tried to tell him in his own way and Merle had had his head too far up his ass to pull it out long enough to listen.

Oh, he was listening now. He was petrified, willing his body to move or his hearing to shut down, but his body didn’t comply. So he lay there, listening to his brother fucking that cop’s brains out for what felt like hours. The next morning, he couldn’t even remember hearing them finish. He must have fallen asleep again before they had been done.

Well, he could find some small comfort in knowing that at least Daryl had given Rick a proper fucking. He’d be surprised if the cop could sit on his ass today.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're all very welcome for that ;)


	8. The Things We Do For Love

Daryl was gone early the next morning. Merle just caught a hasty goodbye as he entered the kitchen, a promise to buy new beer after work and a quick wave just as Rick’s car pulled out of the driveway. So Merle was spared an awkward breakfast and granted some more time to work out a strategy of how to discuss what he had heard last night with Daryl. Hell, how did you tell your closet brother you knew he liked to roll over for the boys?

… Did Daryl roll over for boys?

Jesus, he wasn’t ready to have this talk. He wouldn’t be ready in another thirty years! He considered asking Carol what to do about it, but he had the distinct feeling she would just laugh at him. Should he just pretend he hadn’t heard a thing? But what good would it do him to postpone a talk that was about a decade overdue, anyway?

Suck it up, you pussy!, he chided himself. His brother was still his brother, nothing had changed and nothing would change if he laid the cards out on the table. They would still love each other more than anything in the world.

 

\---***---

 

“Yo, Baby Brother!” Merle greeted Daryl as he strode confidently over to where the younger Dixon was cutting the meat for dinner. Daryl grunted in reply, focused on his task. Merle tried his hardest not to see his brother in a different light now. He was still the same, after all. Still the same. Still the same.

“You look like shit. Rough night?” Merle couldn’t help but tease, leering at his brother’s back, who just shrugged it off.

“Could say that.”

“Rick bitchin’?” Merle leaned against the counter next to Daryl, watching his hands as he worked.

“Partly. He was pretty down after what Shane did. Can’t blame him.” Daryl scratched his nose with the hand holding the knife. Had Merle been a different man, he might have worried for Daryl’s nose; but he didn’t even blink as the sharp blade cut through Daryl’s exhaled air.

“Nah, fuckin’ shitty thing ta do. Rick done trusted him ‘n stuff.” Merle agreed and they fell silent again for a while until Merle could gather the confidence to continue. “Noticed you drank the whole bottle.”

“What was left a it.” Daryl snorted.

“Musta been ‘nough ta get you two drunk off your asses.” Merle snickered, trying to get a rise out of Daryl, but failing as he so often did. His brother finished cutting and washed the knife up. Then he rummaged in the cupboards to find a frying pan to fit all the food. He was making stir fry by the looks of it. Merle gave himself a swift kick in the behind and forced himself to broach the topic already, before Daryl started cooking in earnest and interrupting him would probably end in burnt food.

“Look, Baby Brother… I heard you last night.” Merle finally confessed, staring at his brother’s hands instead of his face. The pan landed on the bench with more force than Daryl had probably intended. Following the bang was a silence so loud, it tingled in Merle’s ears.

He released a relieved breath when Daryl snorted at his admission. “Sorry fer that. I’da closed the window if I’d been sober ‘nough ta remember.” Merle barked out a laugh at that.

“I never bothered.” He pointed out and it was Daryl’s turn to chuckle.

“Tell me ‘bout it. Stopped countin’ all the pussies I’ve seen in ma life.”

“’m beginnin’ ta understand all a them were takin’ ma cock, never yours, hm?” Merle mused. Daryl finally turned to look at him.

“You only getting’ that now?” He asked incredulously. “All those years… I thought you _knew_.“ There was another long silence while Daryl let that sink in.

“Stupid, I know. Think I wan’ed ta be blind. Thought it would change somethin’ ‘tween us…” He confessed. “It ain’t.”

“All those times you caught me with nail polish or make-up… I always thought you just wan’ed ta hide what I was, so that’s what I did.”

“Nah, I didn’ want you ta turn inta a fag. Thought that was how it went. ‘s what Dad used ta say.” He watched Daryl’s face closely and didn’t miss the tiny hint of hurt flicker in his eyes. “Whole lotta bullshit the ol’ man taught me. Ta hate black folks, ta hate cops, ta hate fags. Don’ think he ever said a smart thing in his life. We’re all people, ‘s what I think. You ain’t any different jus’ ‘cause you like cock.”

“Fuck, man, what the hell happened ta the real Merle? Them aliens got him?” Daryl joked, a huge smile breaking out on his lips, even as he made an obvious effort to contain it.

“Shut up while ’m findin’ enlightenment!” Merle snarled playfully, which made Daryl laugh out loud.

“Whoa, slow down, bro. What’s with the words with more ‘n two syllables?” He ducked Merle’s punch easily enough, sending a half-hearted kick to Merle’s shin.

“What ’m sayin’ ‘s that ’m doin’ ma best ta come ta terms with you bangin’ a cop.” That, funnily, made the smile disappear from Daryl’s lips, replaced by a slight scowl.

“I ain’t ‘bangin’ Rick’. Stuff happened that shouldn’t a happened. We were jus’ drunk and he…” Daryl lost the words to continue and swallowed hard, turning around to lean his backside against the bench. Merle gave him a while to gather his thoughts, waiting with a patience he surprised even himself with. “Jus’ asked me ta make it all go away. Ta make him stop thinkin’ ‘bout either a them. Told him it was a bad idea, that we were drunk an’ he was straight an’ shit. He said he don' care. Jus’ wan’ed ta feel wan’ed, you know?” Daryl was chewing on a cuticle now, staring at a spot on the floor. Merle tried to come up with something to say to that, but failed. “We’re jus’ friends, Merle. An’ I’m afraid I fucked that up.”

The silence between them stretched on for a long time, even after Merle had crossed the distance between them and slung an arm around Daryl’s shoulders – damn, when had those become so broad?, he wondered in the back of his mind. While Daryl sorted through his thoughts, Merle pulled out every stereotype he had ever heard about gays and held it against the light of day, comparing them to Daryl and tossing them out of the window with a snort, one by one. Until the box they had been in was empty, ready to be filled with truths he was hoping to find out from Daryl.

On second thought, he took the image of Daryl dolled up with make-up and nail polish and stuffed it back into the box with a snicker. He allowed himself to keep teasing Daryl about that one.

 

\---***---

 

Rick didn’t disappoint in turning up on their doorstep later that night. Merle noticed the car pulling up in their driveway as he was coming back from the can. He flopped down on the couch next to his brother and told him he had a visitor. Daryl didn’t need to ask who it was, they had both kind of expected Rick to drop by and talk to Daryl about last night. So his brother just rose and met Rick on the porch, closing the door behind him. Merle had half a mind to get up and close the wide open window, too, to give the two of them some privacy, but in the end he was too curious to do so. He figured, since he’d listened to them fucking last night, he might as well listen in on the talk the day after. So he turned the TV’s volume down instead.

The silence outside was heavy after the initial greetings. Merle could just imagine Rick standing awkwardly, trying to find the words he wanted to say while Daryl, the unhelpful little shit, stood and waited like he had all the time in the world.

“Look, Daryl…” Rick finally found his voice, but trailed off again after that. Merle watched the news reporter on TV read out some facts and numbers written in his notes, followed by what looked like national budget discussions. Merle took another sip of his beer.

“Rough day?” He heard Daryl ask eventually. Rick answered with a heavy sigh.

“Yeah. Nasty car crash. Been on scene all day.” Rick muttered, voice something in between grateful and annoyed at the change of topic.

“You wan’ a beer?” Daryl inquired.

“Nah, thanks for the offer. But I wanna say I’m sorry about yesterday. I was drunk off my ass-“

“Wouldn’a noticed.” Daryl quipped and made Rick laugh.

“Shut up! Anyway, I was drunk and so were you, don’t you even try denying it. And I know we probably shouldn’t have…” Merle snorted to himself, imagining Rick twisting his hands, trying to look for an adequate expression that wasn’t a cuss word.

“Fucked?” Daryl supplied in that dead-pan way of his.

“Yeah. Let me get this straight, I don’t regret it. I mean, hell, that was mind-blowing sex. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it, though. I was married for ten years or something, I always thought I was straight.”

“Maybe you’re jus’ a drunk gay?” Daryl suggested with a laugh that Rick returned.

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“So what, you’re a closet bisexual?”

“I don’t know. Probably? Maybe? I’ll have to find out. But what I’m getting at is: We’re friends, you and me. I don’t want to spoil that.” Rick finished with another heavy sigh.

“Same here.” Daryl agreed and there was silence for another while, although this one felt comfortable.

“I don’t want to ruin what we have with my insecurity. I don’t want to be all over you one day and push you away the next, because I can’t figure out what I want.” Rick admitted and Merle felt a sudden rush of sympathy for the cop. He really wasn’t such a bad guy.

“’s okay, I ain’t getting’ no wrong ideas. I shouldn’t a given inta you, even though you was beggin’ somethin’ nice’.” Merle could hear the smirk in Daryl’s voice and the answering slap Rick had given him for his cheekiness. “I ain’t gonna stake no claim or nothin’, Rick. Way I see it, we were drunk, you was lonely an’ I was horny. Result was great sex an’ now we go back ta normal. Geez, here I was thinkin’ you’d go all weird on me now, you know.” They shared another laugh.

“Nah, it’s fine. I did ask you to, in the first place. And like I said, I don’t regret it one bit. Truth is, I loved every second of it. Not so much the aftermath, though, I can barely sit down.” Daryl barked out a laugh and Merle chuckled quietly to himself.

“Yeah, well, can’t say I’m surprised.” They shared another moment of silence. “Oh, by the way, Merle heard us.”

“WHAT?” Rick practically shrieked and Merle had to press a cushion against his face to muffle his laughter.

“Yep. ‘s alright, though, he finally got it. That I’m queer, I mean. ‘s a matter a fact, he’s list’nin’ in on us right now.” Daryl replied off-handedly, acting like it was no big deal, but Merle could hear Rick gulping in a breath.

“Fuck, he’s gonna kill me!”

“You better start runnin’, Officer Friendly!” Merle hollered, breaking into a fit of laughter that the other two joined in after a moment, even though Rick still sounded slightly hysterical.

 

\---***---

 

What, Merle wondered, constituted as a good brother? It wasn’t often that he questioned himself, because he knew he was naturally better than anyone else, but he did have an honest day or two here and there in which he would admit to himself that he did have a few faults and flaws. He had begrudgingly admitted that he wasn’t a genius with computers, but he had worked on that – because, frankly, Carol had kicked his ass with that weird psycho-smile of hers and told him she would rip him a new one if he didn’t make an effort, that she carried just the right tool in her purse. He had also admitted that he had had a drug problem after he had come clean and made sure he wouldn’t be tempted again.

Each time, his brother had been his incentive to succeed.

Merle lay on the roof of the library building during his lunch break, protected from the glaring sun by the shade the water tank offered and contemplated his relationship to his brother. Before the boy had even been born, he had been fiercely protective of him. Whether it had been for their Mom’s sake or his brother’s, Merle couldn’t remember; he liked to believe it had been for Daryl. Then, most of Daryl’s childhood and youth, Merle had been behind bars or in the army. In his absence, he had failed to influence his brother’s upbringing and moral compass. Life sure had been hard on Merle, but he had always been himself, no matter the consequences. He supposed Daryl had lived suppressing his wants and needs for as long as they had been in their home town. Which, in turn, made him wonder if life might have been easier if Daryl had been normal – or whatever they called heterosexuality nowadays – and if his queerness could have been avoided. How _did_ that work, really?

He remembered Rick saying he didn’t think people just turned gay all of a sudden. Daryl himself had sounded unsure of that. So, it being one of his honest days, he decided to make some use out of working in a library. He was positive Carol would have made sure to have some good, up-to-date books on the topic on the shelves. She always made sure to have the proper books on controversial topics; her way of making the world a better, more tolerant place, he figured. She was that kind of person, the kind who would quietly and efficiently influence you and your views and smile in your face while she did it. She was the devil, he was sure of that. And he loved her for it. Every town should have a Carol, he decided.

 

\---***---

 

And naturally, the little dragon caught him sniffling around the sexuality section. No, scratch that, of course she caught him, nothing got past that woman. No, she _made a point_ of catching him red-handed. He nearly jumped out of his skin when she took out a dozen books on the opposite side of the shelf so she could look through and _smiled_ that smile of hers. Merle pursed his lips, fighting the blush he could feel creeping up his neck.

“Whacha wan’, Dragon?” He grumbled, feeling like a little boy caught with his hand down his pants.

“Oh, I was just wondering where you had gone. You know, those new books won’t sort themselves out.” She purred, fiddling with a strand of her short, grey hair. She knew it unnerved him, because it made him think of his own hair changing rapidly from dirty blond to grey. He was losing a lot of it, too.

“Yeah, right.” Merle snorted and continued scanning the book titles.

“Looking for something specific?” She put the books back and strolled around to Merle’s side like she was taking a walk in a park. He grumbled a few curses under his breath. “What was that?”

“You know ‘xactly what ’m lookin’ fer!” Merle hissed, stopping in his search, because he noticed he had skipped the last few titles, too focused on Carol.

“Oh, trying to spice up your love life? Well, I have just the right-“

“Cut the crap!” He bellowed, immediately looking around for customers, but they were alone. “Sorry. You know ’m lookin’ fer… You know, Daryl’s thing.”

“I see. I must say, I never took you for the type…” She chirped, already running her finger over the titles. Merle ignored the comment, she was just messing with him anyhow. Ten minutes later, he was balancing a stack of books towards a secluded table in a corner, Carol chatting away about budgets.

It took him weeks to read all that junk about biology and psychology and whatnot and in the end, he was frustrated to have to admit that none of that bullshit really told him anything about his brother. Sure, they had lots to say with their fancy words that Merle had to look up in a dictionary – yes, he possessed one and knew how to use it, thank you very much – but none of that really helped him understand his brother. He was pretty sure now that Daryl had been born that way and that environmental influence would have only made him accept what he was or even repress it more, respectively. Merle knew little about Daryl’s friends during his childhood and youth and if he got acceptance from them.

Maybe Daryl had only come to terms with himself after they had moved to King County.

One thing was for sure, though: Merle loved his brother just the same and he was incredibly happy about that. He had been very scared of his own feelings towards the revelation, had been afraid that he might see Daryl in a different light now, maybe even be unable to look him in the eye anymore. But how could that change when his baby brother still looked at Merle like he was his superhero?

 


	9. This Thunder Heart Echoing A Thousand Miles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to take a moment to thank all of you for your support! Your comments and kudos mean the world to me! You have been and are wonderful.
> 
> Also, I would like to honour my muses and inspirations, Ilerre, superblackmarket and RickylLover!
> 
> A special thanks again to the fantastic Michelle_A_Emerlind for her brilliant beta-ing, editing and support! Thank you for giving me advice on so many things, your quick and thorough work, for not laughing in my face at some of the more stupid mistakes and giving me new confidence. I wouldn't have published this without you!

Halloween had been Merle’s favorite time of year when he had been a kid. He had never had the money for a costume, but he’d figured he didn’t need one; people were scared of him enough without face paint. What he did have, though, and what made the other kids hang with him for the day, were his nasty ideas of pranks to pull on people refusing to give them candy.

Now, thirty years after his last trick, he found himself trailing after Carol, pushing her shopping cart while she picked up decorations and food for her upcoming Halloween party. He couldn’t quite remember how he’d gotten here, but he wasn’t really complaining. Spending most of his day with the woman, you should have thought he’d have enough of Carol and would avoid her like the plague in his free time. But she had been his friend ever since they had moved to this town and somehow, he had grown even fonder of her. He knew the sentiment was mutual; she valued his opinion very much and had gone as far as introducing her new boyfriend Tyreese to him before starting a relationship. To be fair, she had asked Daryl’s opinion, too, but it still made him feel special. No one but his brother had ever done that before. If he had been interested in relationships that went beyond casual sex, he was sure he would have wanted her okay, too.

Plus, shopping with Carol meant he could escape Daryl and Rick’s usual drinking day. They had made that a regular thing a few years ago, meeting up at their place and drinking their way through a bottle of Jack in the backyard or the living room when it got too cold outside. Ever since that fateful night after their road trip over a year ago, these meetings had turned into discussions of things Merle would have given a small fortune to wash out of his memory. He could handle Rick talking about chicks he had hooked up with, but that was a very rare occasion nowadays. And he never seemed to keep a relationship up for long. He claimed he was still looking for the right person and no one had struck him as suitable yet. Merle supposed the guy was just having a wild phase after his marriage.

What Merle couldn’t stand, though, was hearing the two of them talk about guys they’d both fucked. Merle had never realized just how much sex Daryl did manage to have. How the hell did his brother hide that so well? And when did he find the time for it? It was a mystery to Merle; one he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know the facts behind, so he didn’t ask. From time to time, though, he would accidentally pick up a few stories here and there. Like Rick claiming, “I damn near choked on so-and-so’s cock, he’s _huge_!” and Daryl agreeing, “Yeah, totally split the corners a ma mouth on him.” Washing out his ears with soap sadly had done nothing to clear those words from his mind.

So yes, shopping with Carol was so much better. Even if the woman kept a running commentary of what they needed, what she already had and what they were buying right now. Like Merle couldn’t look into the cart and tell by himself. Then again, the cart was so full that he really couldn’t see everything. Difference between him and her being that he didn’t care.

Maybe he should have paid attention, though. For when the check-out chick named the price, Carol turned to him with the brightest smile on God’s green earth and announced that she didn’t have enough money.

“’s the end a the month, how the fuck d’you reckon I can help you there?” He snorted. In the end, he did pay, though. Damn that manipulative, old hag!

 

\---***---

 

Merle considered himself a man of fashion, always had. Fashionably late, fashionably speeding and fashionably drunk, three fashions he excelled at. So he left late for Carol’s party, ignoring Daryl’s nagging, then breaking the speed limit on the way there, knowing the cops would be too busy tonight for speed checks. When they arrived, the party was already in full swing, the music just barely audible outside the house. Just as Merle went to push the door open, it swung inward by itself and they found themselves face to face with a latino, probably in his late twenties. He eyed Merle up and nodded in greeting; then his eyes found Daryl and his face when from politely-neutral to predatory in a split-second.

“Hello.” The stranger sing-songed as he pushed past them, brushing his arm against Daryl’s in the process.

“Hi.” Daryl purred back, pointedly turning around and walking a few steps backwards so he could watch the man walk into the front yard to light a cigarette, still looking over his shoulder, eye-fucking Daryl. Merle snorted to himself and gave his brother a clip around the ears. Not even through the door and he had already exchanged thinking with his brain for thinking with his dick.

Atta boy. They grew up so quick…

Before they went through the process of greeting pretty much everyone in the house – when had they come to know the whole town?, Merle wondered – they grabbed a beer each and Merle started working on his third and favorite fashion. He lost Daryl pretty quickly to Rick and Shane standing with two black women and a red-head with arms that rivaled even Daryl’s tree trunks for biceps. Merle knew they were all local cops, so he didn’t bother going over; cops were still something of a sore topic for him, even though he hadn’t had any trouble with them besides occasional speeding tickets for years. Plus, he knew the atmosphere between Rick and Shane was still a little strained since the latter was dating Rick’s ex-wife now. Daryl liked to offer Rick moral support, even though Merle could tell he wanted nothing more than to give Shane a piece of his mind; with his fist, preferably. So Merle gave that particular minefield a wide berth.

Merle alternated talking to Carol, Tyreese – whose sister was one of the black cops, he learned – and Axel, one of Daryl’s co-workers, with dancing with Andrea, his lawyer. Sometime after midnight, he spotted Rick and Daryl on the dance floor, too. They weren’t doing a whole lot of dancing, more like grinding against a man sandwiched between them. When the guy turned his head away from Rick in his front to kiss Daryl over his shoulder, Merle recognized him as the man they had met upon arriving at the party. He chuckled to himself and nudged Andrea, gesturing in the three men’s direction.

“Looks like they’re having fun.” She giggled and they watched for a while. “Daryl’s much more outgoing with his sexuality since Rick came out, too. I think it suits them well.” She observed, side-eying Merle like she was checking his reaction, but Merle didn’t have a problem with his brother publicly making out with another guy. He was even drunk enough to watch him slip a hand to where Rick was rubbing his crotch against the third guy’s without feeling the need to scrub his eyes with bleach.

Later, when he tried the doorknob to the bathroom, he heard the guy call out Daryl’s name from the other side of the door, accompanied with rhythmic thuds against the wood. Oh well, he’d take a piss in the bushes, then.

Daryl took Merle home at the end of the night, since his big brother couldn’t drive anymore. He didn’t miss how his baby brother kissed the guy – whose name was Martinez, Andrea had told him – goodbye and pushed him into Rick’s arms, who gave Daryl a leer and thumbs up. Did the bathroom sex constitute as a test-run, wingman-ing or sharing?, Merle wondered dimly.

Either way, Rick and Daryl made a good team, Merle decided.

 

\---***---

 

In hindsight, Merle supposed he should have seen that one coming from miles away. Even if it had taken years. It all came down to one thing in the end:

Rick and Daryl.

It was like a law of nature of some sort. From the first meeting, Rick and Daryl had been caught in each other’s orbit. They had been inseparable for years, so this seemed like a natural extension of their relationship.

Still, he hadn’t expected to find Daryl fucking Rick bent over their kitchen table on a Saturday morning.

And they didn’t even bother stopping or hiding anything as they wished him a good morning and carried on like nothing had happened. Merle scratched his ass absent-mindedly, musing that they all matched outfits – that being none at all. But he supposed if Rick and Daryl could be naked in their kitchen, he was allowed the same privilege. So he grabbed some iced coffee out of the fridge, took a few gulps straight out of the carton and went back to bed.

By the time Rick screamed Daryl’s name in passion, Merle was snoring again.

 

\---***---

 

A few days later, they celebrated Daryl’s thirty-fifth birthday. It was a small celebration, with only Carol, Sophia, Rick and Carl present. They sat on a picnic blanket in the backyard that Merle had made the effort to mow just for this occasion and cooked various kinds of game over a small fire.

Rick and Daryl made it official then.

They really didn’t surprise anyone with the revelation, but the general reaction was still one of great joy, so Carol grabbed the bottle of champagne out of the fridge and poured them each a glass, even the teenagers. And Merle decided then and there that one of his favorite things in the world was the expression on Daryl’s face when he kissed Rick.

 

\---***---

 

Somewhere along the lines, Merle had told himself Daryl wouldn’t be with Rick forever, so whatever shit the cop put him through, he would get rid of him in the end and life would go back to normal. Not that things were particularly bad or very different from what they had been before. Sure, Daryl went on dates now and drinking with Rick ended in fucking in the living room on a regular basis. But the two of them didn’t spend much more time with each other than they already did anyway. Which made Merle realize just how much time they had been spending together in the first place. It seemed like Merle saw Rick every single day in one way or another. Damn.

But to be fair, he had to say Rick wasn’t around every waking hour of the day. Some days, Daryl would just text Rick a few times and that would be it. And when Rick stayed overnight, he would always help Daryl cook dinner and breakfast, as well as partake in Merle’s chores.

But Merle was used to running his mouth nonstop at home and Daryl tuning him out or grunting when he agreed with something Merle had said. When Rick was around, he would actually join in the one-sided conversation and tell Merle straight-on when he was being a dickhead. He would corrupt Merle’s more backwater views with proper arguments or inform him when he was overlooking facts. And what freaked Merle out the most: He would explain stuff when Merle wondered aloud about something he didn’t understand.

When Merle was being particularly tedious, Rick would tell Daryl to make his brother shut up or he would leave. Those times generally ended in Daryl pulling Rick out of the room to make out somewhere where Merle would run into them later. Since both Merle and Rick hated it when Merle caught them in the act, he supposed that was Daryl’s way of telling them they were both morons.

They did settle into a comfortable rhythm after a while, against all odds. And Daryl even made sure he went on hunting trips with just Merle as company every now and then. So really, Merle had no reason to complain. But deep inside, he couldn’t help but feel protective of Daryl, thinking how no man in the world could be good enough for his baby brother. Plus, if he was being completely honest with himself, he was a little jealous of Rick for taking up Daryl’s time.

The jealousy went in time as he learned to be content with what time Daryl did spend with him.

After a year, Rick also stopped being annoying and he got used to the wisecracking.

It took another half year to stop being irritated by walking in on them having sex.

Merle allowed himself a little longer to come to terms with catching Daryl on the bottom end, too.

The feeling of inadequacy on Rick’s part stayed for the better part of five years.

When Merle woke up to rush into his brother’s room, ignoring all the nakedness and gayness in order to tackle his brother into the mattress, yell “Happy birthday” at the top of his lungs and laugh at his old ass, he took a moment to look at a very disheveled Rick and admit to himself that, all things considered, he was an okay guy. Daryl could have done so much worse. So he gave the cop a quick, very naked hug and messed up his hair some more.

“You’re forty now, you old fag!” Merle cackled, dodging a pillow thrown his way.

 

\---***---

What, in essence, made a life a good one?

Thirty-six years of his life, Merle had lived in his own shadow in a town that hated him because of his name, various correctional facilities and the army. His life had been miserable and blurred by addictive substances. The brother he had been so protective of once upon a time had lived his life so far out of his reach that Merle hadn’t known what it was like to be loved by him.

None of that constituted as good living to Merle twenty years later. When he mused about his life, it was those last twenty years that came to his mind and with a pleased smile he found it was, indeed, a good one.

Rehab, Daryl taking them to King County for a fresh start, living with his brother and getting to know him slowly. Meeting Carol, Sophia, then Rick. Carol was the best friend Merle could have ever hoped for, even if she was a dragon to work for. And Rick, Rick made Daryl happy like nothing else ever could. Rick may have been a cop and Merle never missed an opportunity to rub that in Daryl’s face; he had tried teasing Rick about it, too, but the man failed to see the point. But he was a very good and decent guy, too.

So really, he must have been on the right track, Merle supposed. Daryl had dragged his ass back on it and his loyalty and love for his brother had been enough of a motivation to stay on it, too. And he had never strayed again.

Daryl was out with Rick somewhere that night and Merle sat on his porch in the glowing sunset, reminiscing on the good times and toasting himself to making the right decisions in the end.

He took the last swig of his warm beer and grimaced. Tasted like horse piss, he decided. Been sitting on his lazy ass with his head stuck in the fucking clouds for too long. He snorted at himself. Might as well get up and clean the mess he had left in the kitchen after dinner.

That would please Daryl.

 

~*~

 

Mine is yours and yours is mine  
There is no divide  
In your honor  
I would die tonight

 

_In Your Honor by Foo Fighters_

~*~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this sums it up okay for you. I chose to end this story the way I see life: Just a quiet, continuous flow of time.
> 
> Thank you all for reading!


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